Performing MRP and Evaluating Results—Key Exercises

IMPORTANT
It is extremely important that you set up and work within your own site(s) to maintain your data integrity. If you work within any other site, you will compromise your own exercise data as well as the data of other students. Predictable exercise results require that your data be isolated in your own site(s). The Make to Stock course requires that you set up two different sites.

Basic Data Setup

Make to Stock Course Data Setup

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to set up the required prerequisite data needed for all Make to Stock exercises. You need to do this exercise only once to support the key Make to Stock exercises in the current database.

  1. If you haven't done so already, create two sites and set up all the Make to Stock required data in those sites.  

General exercise for Overview of Make To Stock Data

Sales Part

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to define a part as a sales part for use in the MRP exercises.

Windows:
Sales Part

  1. Define part 90-100 as a sales part in your primary site. Enter 100 in the Price field. You can use the existing values in the Sales Price Grp, Sales Group, and VAT Code fields.

General exercise for Sales Part

MRP Message Controller and Action Messages

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to set up a message controller and to configure which MRP action messages will be used.

Windows:
MRP Basic Data

  1. Set up yourself as an MRP message controller.
  2. Set up all available MRP action messages to display when you run the MRP process. 

General exercise for Make to Stock Basic Data 

Required Data

Purpose: The purpose of these required data exercises is to create supply and demand for inventory parts that will affect the result of the MRP process. 

Windows:
MS Level 1 Part
Customer Orders
Shop Order

Note: The following required data exercises must be done in the order shown.

Create MS Level 1 Forecast

  1. In your primary site, plan part 90-100 as MS Level 1 with a demand time fence of 5 and a planning time fence of 10. Create an MS level 1 forecast on MS set 1 for the 90-100 parent part for quantity of 20 on a valid date (35 days from today). Run MS level 1. This will be the demand for the parent part.

General exercise for Performing MS Level 1

Create a Customer Order

  1. In your primary site, create a customer order for the 90-100 part with a quantity of 10.  The date should be 40 days from today. This will be the other demand source for the parent part. You can use an existing customer or create a new customer for this exercise.

General exercise for Entering Customer Orders

Create Shop Orders

  1. In your primary site, create a shop order for the 90-110 part with a quantity of 20.  The shop order must have a need date that is 10 days before the MS forecast date. Leave the shop order in a Planned state.
  2. In your second site, create a shop order for the 90-110 part with a quantity of 20.  The need date should be 2 months from today's date.

General exercise for Manually Creating Shop Orders

Main Exercises

Performing  Site MRP

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to perform MRP on your site. 

Windows:
Perform Site MRP
Background Jobs

  1. Open the Perform Site MRP window.
  2. Select the site you created as your own primary site. 
  3. Use the default run date. The default date is based on today's date on the selected site. Note that this date is affected by the time zone defined for the site.
  4. Note that the two optional check boxes default to the following settings: Stop MRP on error is selected and Add 1 day leadtime backoff to planned receipts is cleared. Leave these settings as they default. (If for some reason these settings do not default to the above, change them.)
  5. Click OK. The MRP process is ordered and logged in the background process list.
  6. Open and populate the Background Jobs window.
  7. Note that the MRP process is listed in this window. Check the state of the process. The state will be Posted when first logged and Executing when actually processing. (You will need to refresh the window to display the current state.)  When the process is done, it will have either a Warning state if no error occurred or an Error state if any error occurred.  If all the basic data and required data has been set up properly, you should not receive errors during the process.

Note: If the Stop MRP on error check box is cleared, MRP will always end up in a Warning state   (even if errors occurred, MRP will skip the errors and continue processing). You can select the appropriate row for the process, right-click, and then click View Details to see more information.

Scheduling MRP

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to schedule MRP to run at a specific time weekly (for example at 12:00am every Saturday).

Windows:
New Database Task Schedule

  1. Open  the Perform Site MRP dialog.
  2. Click Schedule .
  3. Enter your site into the Site field, and leave the other two options in the window as they default.
  4. Enter the time (using a 24-hour format) and select the day on which the process should be performed. You can select more than one day. Click save when you are done.

 

Notes:  

Reviewing and Taking Action on MRP Action Proposals

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate the result of the MRP process, sorted by planner.

Windows:
MRP Action Proposals

  1. Open the MRP Action Proposals window and populate the window with all records from your site. (Perform a query in the window, entering your site ID in the query window.)
  2. Since all parts are attached to planner '*' and your user ID is linked to this planner, the MRP message configuration defined for planner '*' is effective. (You will receive only MRP action messages that are selected in the message configuration for planner '*'.)
  3. Note that the 90-110 part has one record with an MRP message of Early Order. This is because the shop order for this part exists before it actually is required to satisfy the demand that comes from MS level 1 forecast of its parent part (90-100). Therefore MRP suggests moving the order forward.
  4. The 90-111, 90-112, 90-120, 90-121, 90-122, and 90-130 parts have MRP messages of Need Order. These messages were generated because those parts do not have any supplies to satisfy their demands. In this case, MRP created purchase requisitions for them as they are purchased parts. Parts that have no existing demands will have a No Demand Exist MRP message.
  5. To take action on the MRP message, select the row where part 90-110 has message Early Order, right-click, and then click Follow Up. The Shop Order window for the 90-110 part displays. You can adjust the need date of the shop order. If you adjusted the need date, save the record.
  6. Close the Shop Order window and return to the  MRP Action Proposals window. If you adjusted the need date on the shop order, select Action taken from the list in the Action Taken field and enter today's date in the Action Taken Date field. Save the changes.
  7. Review the action messages for the 90-111 part. Both have an MRP action messages of Need Order. Right-click and click on Follow Up.
  8. A new, empty Purchase Order window is displayed. You can create a new order for the 90-111 part in this window to follow the MRP suggestion.

Note: You have probably noticed that the Follow Up method reacts appropriately for each selected MRP message. It will display the appropriate window for the planner to make the necessary adjustment.

Evaluating MRP Part Information

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate the MRP results on planned receipts, deliveries, and gross demand for parts. 

Windows:
MRP Part Information

  1. Open the  MRP Part Information window and query for all the parts in your primary site. 
  2. Note that the 90-100 part is not listed because it is defined as an MS level 1 part. However MRP will plan the components of this part.
  3. Move to the Detail tab, which contains general information about the selected part. You can see the total demand and the total order here.
  4. Move to the next tab, Receipt and Deliveries. Check the records for the 90-110, 90-120, and 90-130 parts. (These parts are direct components of the MS level 1 part 90-100.)

    Also check on the components of the 90-110 and 90-120 parts, and note:

  5. Move to the Gross Requirements tab. Check the result of the MRP process on the 90-110, 90-120, and 90-130 parts.

    Note: If you select the Add 1 day leadtime backoff to planned receipts check box in the Perform MRP window, the shop order for the 90-110 part will be available on the previous work day of the shop order need date.

    Also check on the components of the 90-110 and 90-120 parts, and note that:

  6. Select the 90-110 part and move to the Gross Requirements by Template tab. For the first time the system will populate the data using the default period template (template ID 1). 
  7. Right-click in the window header and then click View Data by Period Template. A window to choose the template ID appears.
  8. Enter the period template ID 2 or select from the List of Values (click the List button).  Click OK. The Gross Requirements by Template tab is repopulated and displays supply and demand based on the period template ID 2. Supply and demand for the 90-110 part may appear at the same period number because you have defined one period as one month.
  9. Right-click on the Gross Requirements by Template tab header and then click Recalculate current template details. This action displays a dialog box that allows you to recalculate the selected period template using a new starting date or a different calendar ID.

Note: You can quickly access some related windows by right-clicking in the header portion of the window and then clicking the appropriate option. You can jump to the following windows: 

Evaluating the Material Plan

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to view a comprehensive display of the supply and demand details for MRP-planned parts. 

Windows:
MRP Material Plan

  1. Open the MRP  Material Plan window and populate it with all the parts in your site.
  2. The 90-100 part is not listed because it is defined as an MS level 1 part. In this window you can query for all the supplies and demands along with the detailed information for each supply/demand (for example, supply demand type, supply/demand quantity, order number, line number, release number, line item number, and status).
  3. Select the 90-110 part. In the Material Planning tab, you can see the created shop orders and demand from master scheduling. 
  4. Right-click and then click Supply/Demand Details to see the details for each supply and demand.
  5. Select the row that displays Shop Order in the Order supply demand field, right-click, and the click Supply/Demand Details. The Shop Order window for the 90-110 part is displayed.
  6. Close the Shop Order window and return to the MRP  Material Plan window.
  7. Select the row that displays Master Schedule in the Order supply demand field, right-click, and then click Supply/Demand Details. The  MS Level 1 Part window displays, populated with the 90-100 parent part. 
  8. Close the MS Level 1 Part window and return to MRP  Material Plan window.
  9. Move to the Material Planning by Template tab. This tab will display the same information as the first tab, but now the information is displayed based on the period in the selected period template.
  10. At first, the system will populate the window using the default period template (template ID 1). You can select your own template by right-clicking on the tab header and then clicking Select Template. A dialog box displays in which you can select a period template. 
  11. Enter Template ID 2 and click OK.

  12. The Material Planning by Template tab is repopulated using the selected template.

Note: You can quickly access some related windows by right-clicking in the MRP  Material Plan window and then clicking the appropriate option. You can jump to the following windows: 

Evaluate Material Plan by Part

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate a comprehensive display of the supply and demand details about MRP-planned parts, grouped by part number regardless of the site.   

Windows:
MRP Material Plan Multi-Site.

  1. Perform the MRP process on your second site.
  2. Open the MRP Material Plan Multi-Site window and query for the 90-110, 90-111, and 90-112 parts. This window is similar to the MRP Material Plan window except that it is grouped by part number regardless of the site. If one part is defined in several sites, then all supplies and demands for that part will be displayed here. 
  3. Click the Material Planning by Template tab and query the result using your defined period template (using the period template you have defined).
  4. Click the Site Level Details tab to see detailed information from each site. 

Evaluating the Material Plan in a Graph

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate the MRP results from a 2-D bar graph.  

Windows:
MRP Material Plan Graph

  1. Open the MRP Material Plan Graph window and query for all parts in your primary site.
  2. In the Period Template field, enter your period template ID 2.
  3. Right-click and then click Show Graph. A dialog box displays in which you can select the period range. The beginning period displays as 0 because the start date defaults to the period template recalculation date. The end date defaults to today's date.
  4. Update the end period number to 12. Click OK.  A 2-D bar graph of supply and demand is calculated and then displayed. The axis shows the period number from the selected period template.

Printing an MRP Report    

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to order and preview an MRP report, as well as to schedule automatic MRP reports.

Windows:
Order Report

  1. Open the Order Report window. Search for MRP report.
  2. Enter your primary site in the Site field.
  3. In the Planner field, either specify your planner ID or leave it as % to include all planners.
  4. Leave the Commodity Group 2 field empty so that all commodity group 2 values are included. MRP uses only commodity group 2, so it is the only group from which you can select. 
  5. In the Part No field, either enter a part number if you want to print the report for a specific part or leave it as % to include all parts from your site on the report.
  6. In the Part Type field, either enter a part type if you want the report to include only a specific type or leave it as % to print all parts regardless of type.
  7. If you want, you can click Yes from the Show Orders Created list to include all orders created by MRP in the report.
  8. You also can click Yes from Show Orders Changed list to include all orders that the MRP process suggested be rescheduled.
  9. Enter a valid date 5 months ahead from today's date in the Up to Date field. The report will include all orders up to this date.
  10. Click OK when you are done.
  11. The system prompts you to choose whether you want to print the report directly without previewing it.  Click No so that you can first preview the report.
  12. The Report Print dialog box appears. Set the format layout and select the printer to be used. Click Preview.
  13. The preview window appears. You can study the report result here, using the button bar to move forward and backward.
  14. Use the print icon if you want this report printed. (Make sure your computer is connected to the printer you selected in the Report Print dialog box.)
  15. Close the preview window when you are done.

Note: You can schedule MRP reports to be printed weekly just as you can schedule the MRP process.

  1. Open the New Database Task Schedule window and select Perform MRP Report as the job to be scheduled
  2. Click Schedule.
  3. Enter the report parameters. (This is similar to when you entered the parameters to print the report online.)
  4. Enter the time (using a 24-hour format) and select the day on which the process should be performed. (Make sure that the report is scheduled after the MRP process, allowing at least a 10-minute gap between the MRP process and the MRP report process.) Save it